


Live Through This and You Won’t Look Back

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, a little angsty, post-4x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/N: Post-4x04 Felicity-centric. A little angsty.</p>
<p>"This city brings people back from the dead. Maybe it can do it once more."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live Through This and You Won’t Look Back

_A/N: Post-4x04 Felicity-centric. A little angsty._

_Title from (I stg I’m so sorry this is so on the nose I hate myself, but it’s a really good song and actually kind of pertinent)[“Your Ex-Lover is Dead”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Or6-HOveg) by Stars._

**Live Through This and You Won’t Look Back**

_This city brings people back from the dead._

It’s an irrational thought, potentially a toxic one, but she just can’t shake it as she stands on their balcony, a few minutes after sunset, waiting for Oliver to return home. She does this now, sometimes. She likes their place better with him in it.

Tonight, she’s using the cool fall breeze to dry the tears on her cheeks, the ones that haven’t stopped falling since she played Ray’s recording in her office earlier. She’s using the silence at the top of the city to try and calm the panic in her brain.

He sent her a message, not from beyond the grave, just grave-adjacent. And some crazy part of her thinks maybe he’s still sending her messages. The code on her phone, the fritzes in the new lair. He’s the only man she’s ever know who had the programming prowess to override a system like the one Cisco helped her set up. Well, one of two, and the other she hasn’t heard from in almost two decades.

Oliver came back from the dead, at least once. Thea did too. Slade Wilson, Malcolm Merlyn, hell, even Cooper had resurfaced in this godforsaken city, the one they can’t seem to stop themselves from trying to save. Felicity’s not even sure how many times Sara Lance has come back, and she knows at some point she’s going to have to tell Oliver about the trackers in Thea and Laurel’s phones that she activated when he came home with a sketchy story about a “spa weekend.” But that’s a whole other problem entirely, one she hasn’t had enough time to figure out.

She hears the sound of the front door opening, and before she can even turn to double-check, he’s calling out for her. She’s not sure she’ll ever grow tired of the domesticity of that, his voice echoing through their home after a long day (or night) of work. She knows better than to take it for granted and her eyes slip shut in bliss almost every time.

“Hey.” Her traitorous voice cracks as he joins her on the balcony, but he’d know it soon enough, anyway. It’s written all over her face.

“What’s wrong?” He grabs at her hands to pull her towards him, taking a quick moment to survey her for physical wounds before he ducks his head to look her in the eye.

“How was your meeting?” She tries to deflect, just once, to see if he’ll let her.

“Felicity,” he doesn’t even humor it, just grabs her elbows lightly and runs his hands up her arms. The action is more soothing than it has any right to be. “What happened?”

She takes a deep, shaking breath. And decides which of the things weighing on her mind she can lay on him right now. Because he’s had himself a week too, stabbed in the back both physically and metaphorically, and running the gamut from questioning his mayoral candidacy to announcing it.

Since they’ve come back, he’s been so good about keeping himself in the light,. She doesn’t want to conjure up any old shadows.

“A few days ago, Curtis decrypted a message from Ray,” she tells him. “His last…his last words.”

She’s embarrassed that it’s still a relief when nothing even close to jealousy flashes across his face before he’s banding his arms around her. The steady flow of tears release itself in a violent sob as she slumps against him.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers the words into her hair, hot breath ghosting over the top of her ear, one hand rubbing strong circles across her back. “That must have been so hard.”

They stand like that for a few long minutes. This is why things are better now, she remembers it every time she gets to hold him like this. Anything that happens, they’re facing it together.

“Do you want some dinner?” he asks, barely pulling back. “I can heat up that chili from the other night.”

She shakes her head against his chest, grateful that he had changed into an old t-shirt at some point.

“I just want to go to bed.” She’s exhausted, has been for weeks now, but it’s finally catching up. He just nods and drops his lips to brush over hers. She can tells that his intention is to keep it chaste, but the second she tastes him, she needs more, pressing up on her toes to follow him as he pulls back, trailing her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck and tangling their tongues for a second.

“Mmhm, can I carry you?” She feels him grin against her lips before she meets his eager gaze, and she only rolls her eyes for show.

He facing the window when she makes her way out from the bathroom, surveying the city like she knows he has a thousand times before. He’s shirtless, he’s changed into just his sleep pants, and when he turns to face her, yeah, that’s another thing she’ll never stop appreciating.

“I think Lance is going to turn for us.” The words are low, almost gravel, as they crawl into bed, and he immediately curls in behind her, draping an arm across her stomach.

She hears the tiny break in his voice, remembers a few nights ago, when he had come home after confronting the detective about Damien Darhk. He told her everything, voice shaking as he recounted every word they had said to each other, and then he had told her a story about his father.

In another lifetime, Felicity had learned, the Queen’s Gambit would have been remembered for father-son fishing trips. They’d spend a few days off the coast, just Oliver and Robert – sometimes Tommy too, of course – swimming and fishing and, starting after Ollie turned 14, drinking.

_“You can be anything you want in this life, Ollie.”_ He told her how his father had slurred the words at him through his fifth or sixth scotch, explained how it had felt like a challenge, instead of the privilege that it was. _“Hell, you could run for mayor.”_

Oliver never had a chance to prove himself to Robert Queen, she understood, and more than that, he never had any reason to. But he’s now spent the better part of his life trying to win over Quentin Lance, and Felicity knew the man’s betrayal had cut him deeper than Liza Warner’s knife a few nights later. She’s never been more grateful for Donna Smoak than when she realized he hadn’t just lost a role model, he had lost the last true parental figure in his life.

“Lost,” metaphorically, of course, which she knows from experience can feel even worse.

“This is too early for bed,” she whimpers, even as her eyes start to drift shut. He tucks his face into her neck, exhaling softly and she welcomes the scrape of his stubble against her skin as he pulls her even closer. “You’re going to wake up hungry at like, one in the morning.”

“ _You’re_ going to wake up hungry,” he tosses back, pulling her closer. He’s right. It’s always her that’s dragging him from their bed to the kitchen. Not that he ever complains, they always end up back in bed eventually. “It’s okay. I’ll heat up the chili. Or, you can make omelets.”

This life of theirs puts things in an interesting perspective, she almost grins, tossing a half-hearted elbow back into his ribs. In some other universe, maybe just in some other city, another couple is going to bed angry right now after one of them cried over an ex. She’s not sure whether or not to be glad that the magnitude of what they deal with on a daily basis leaves no room for petty games or unfounded worry in their relationship.

She _is_ sure she’s grateful that the enormity of what’s between them doesn’t diminish anything she felt for Ray. She loves Oliver entirely, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t be sad. And it doesn’t mean she can’t believe that she’d do anything in her power to bring him back. It does mean, however, that she needs to tell Oliver, soon.

This city brings people back from the dead. Maybe it can do it once more.


End file.
